Far too little, far too late!

Proposals to upgrade the rail infrastructure on the Seymour line are far too little, far too late.

Prof Kevin Anderson.

Rail is unquestionable to most environmentally friendly way to move people and goods, but the climate change broadside that is about to pin us down will ensure we are not going anywhere.

Rather than invest time, money and effort into figuring out how we can maintain the status quo, that being “business as usual”, those energies and resources should be directed at strengthening communities, making them more resilient and so more able to cope with the unfolding and unquestionable changes.

Rather than worry about our rail network, we need help people understand and create the “five-minute-life”, that is, a way of living which everything important in our day-to-day lives is five minutes cycling or walking away.

Writing in his latest book, “The Conundrum”, American journalist, David Owen, argued that if we are to endure the emerging difficulties; we should not be going anywhere.

His “stay at home” philosophy is about each of us using less energy and so reducing our carbon dioxide emissions; emissions that according to the world’s leading climatologist, James Hansen, are making the world an uncomfortable place.

"The Conundrum" by
David Owen.

Hansen’s thoughts, and warnings, have been repeated by a former director of Manchester University’s Tyndall Centre, the UK's leading academic climate change research organization, Professor Kevin Anderson.

Watching what is happening in and around Shepparton suggests that many continue blissfully unaware of the shifts in lifestyle predicted by the likes of Hansen and Anderson.

After two century-long indoctrination into the capitalistic insistence on growth, most of us, myself included, are unable to escape the mantra that life should be bigger, better, faster, safer, happier and packed with consumer goods, mostly resulting from fossil-fuelled energies.

A few minutes spent listening to either Hansen or Anderson will remind us, that our future will be somewhat different from that decades-long promise.

Interestingly, a friend recently said many young people have fallen into a depressive malaise because of such doom and gloom, but there is little I can do other than apologise.

However, what we can do as a broader society is encourage our governments, at all levels, to force us into decided austerity; an austerity that would enforce a degree of poverty and so slow our consumptive behaviour.

Hansen and Anderson’s thoughts were reinforced when the ABC reported last week that carbon dioxide levels were now higher than at any time in the last 800 000 years, while the last decade in Australia was the warmest on record.

To ease the doom and gloom malaise my friend pointed to, we need to invest time and energy into making our neighbourhoods and our communities more inclusive and happier places, rather than making them easier to leave.